Voter turnout up across Durham

Ballot box

DURHAM -- After years of steady declines in turnout in Ontario, voters seem to have bucked the trend with the 2014 election.

Voter turnout figures represent the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots. Province-wide, voter turnout was 52.1 per cent, an eight-per cent increase over 2011 when 48.2 per cent of eligible Ontarians cast ballots. This was the first voter turnout increase since 1990.

The lowest turnout in Durham was in Oshawa where 50.8 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the race that saw the NDP’s Jennifer French take the riding, defeating 19-year Queen’s Park veteran Jerry Ouellette.

However, the riding saw the biggest voter turnout jump compared to the 2011 election, with a 14.7-per cent increase. In 2011 only 44.3 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots.

Trent University history professor David Sheinin said it’s too early to say for sure what accounted for the bump in voter turnout and the issue warrants further study.

“I think it’s too early to speculate, but I do think it’s potentially good news for the labour movement in that those numbers are particularly striking in the NDP win in Oshawa,” he said.

He pointed out the Liberals benefited from the labour vote as well.

“Most unions favoured the Liberals in a kind of stop-Hudak mode,” he said.

Raw numbers-wise, the Ajax-Pickering riding saw the largest increase in the number of people voting, with almost 10,000 more people casting ballots, representing a 23-per cent increase in the number of votes cast. That’s partly because of population growth. The riding saw the largest increase among Durham ridings in the number of eligible voters with 7,700 names added to the voters list compared to 2011. Voter turnout in the riding went from 44.8 per cent to 51.1 per cent, a 14-per cent increase in turnout.

The lowest turnout increase was in Whitby-Oshawa, still a respectable 10-per cent increase. The riding was tied in 2011 with the Durham and Pickering-Scarborough East ridings for highest voter turnout in Durham with 49.7 per cent of registered voters casting ballots. In 2014, 54.7 per cent of the eligible voted, with Christine Elliott holding the riding for the Tories.

The turnout in Whitby-Oshawa was the second highest locally. The Durham riding where Liberal Granville Anderson won a traditionally blue territory saw a 56.1-per cent voter turnout, a 12.9-per cent increase over 2011.

Reporter Reka Szekely covers the City of Oshawa for Metroland Media Group’s Durham Region Division. Reka's social media column appears every other week. Contact her on Facebook, Twitter (@rszekely)